It was just a bag of bagels, but the purchase at Myer's Bagel Bakery and Cafe generated a screen display fit for a king, or maybe a kindergartner.

Payment options on the touch screen that serves as both cash register and tip-enabler presents the customer with choices for a tip that range from "15% Good" to "30% Best Service Ever!" There are percentages in between. You can customize the tip, or opt for a box marked "No Tip."

Since Myer's instituted the payment system, known as Clover, a few months ago, there has been a "100-percent improvement in tips," said Chris Conn, who runs the café.

Jay Powell, a consultant to Keurig who stopped in to Myer's the other day for a to-go order, said the system makes tipping easier.

"I'm inclined anyway to leave a tip," Powell said. "But I do feel the pressure of the button in front of me."

The Clover screen flips toward the customer, who sees the list of tipping options displayed before him.

"This is a bagel shop," he said. "People want a bagel yesterday. They want to sit down and eat a bagel, not stand up and interact with a dinosaur machine."

Eighty-three percent of people who pay via the Clover system at a counter-service restaurant leave a tip, said Mark Schulze, a co-founder of the company. Half the tippers leave 15 percent, he said. This is the smallest percent presented on the screen (apart from nothing).

Schulze said his company has asked business owners and employers what they think of Clover's tipping option, and the gist of the anecdotal evidence is: "Employees love it because their tip rates have gone up so much."

At Stone Soup restaurant in Burlington, which has a tip bowl on the counter, the owners estimate half the people leave a tip. "Some people tip really well," co-owner Tim Elliott said. "Some people throw us their change."

Robin Sutphen, manager of New Moon Cafe in Burlington who has worked in numerous restaurants, said he expects "nothing" from a tip jar.

Tips on tipping

Tipping should occur as a standard part of eating out, says Peter Post, manager of the Emily Post Institute in Burlington. He is the great grandson of Emily Post, who was known for her thinking and writing on etiquette. Expertise and authorship on the subject of manners and social do's and don'ts remain in the family.

A person who has a meal in a restaurant is bound by a kind of contract to leave a tip, Post said. He advises a 20-percent tip at a full service restaurant, calculated pre-tax. Ten percent is appropriate when dining at a buffet, he said. At a semi-service restaurant where you order at the counter and your meal is brought to your table, a 15-percent tip is reasonable, Post recommends. If you're not sure what to do in a certain circumstance, look around at what other customers are doing, or ask, he said.

Leaving money in a tip jar or the electronic equivalent is optional, he said. If you're a regular at a coffee shop, leave a tip sometimes to cover a week or so of service, Post advises. He tips every so often when he buys a sandwich to-go at Union Jacks on Shelburne Road, where he has equal praise for the sandwiches and the service.

If you're confronted with a tablet device and don't want to leave a tip, but have difficulty finding that option, it's OK to ask for assistance. "How do I mark no tip?" is a reasonable question, Post said.

"I recognize, personally, that that could be very difficult, that you could feel awkward doing that, but it's your money until you give it to somebody," he said. "I think a digital tip jar should include no tip as easily as it does the tips."

At Maglianero, a café on Maple Street in Burlington that uses a tablet device with tipping options, manager Abby Holden said she thinks it would make people uncomfortable if she watched them make choices on the tablet. She was unaware of the specific tipping percentages suggested by the machine (15 percent, 20, 25).

The gist of counter-service is the interaction, she said: "Talking to people, making a relationship with people, in three-and-a-half minutes."

Tipping is a sensitive subject, about which some people prefer privacy. An Italian woman who has lived in Vermont for years said she prefers the European method, where a server's salary is paid by the employer (service is typically included in restaurant bills in Europe). The woman declined to give her name the other morning, drinking espresso with a friend at Maglianero.

A customer at South End Kitchen in Burlington said one recent night, after busing his own table, "Why tip?" He, too, wouldn't say his name.

Another diner at the semi-service restaurant, Pamela Campbell of Northfield, said she tips at least 20 percent no matter where she eats.

"My tipping policy is because I've worked in restaurants and I know how little they get paid," said Campbell, who works at Norwich University. "If I have really exceptional service then I tip somewhere between 20 and 30 percent."

Restaurant workers past and present share a commitment to solid tipping, according to a random, unscientific survey of customer habits.

"I tip more than I can afford to," said Nate House, a barista at Maglianero who also works at Butch & Babe's on North Winooski Avenue.

If Elliott of Stone Soup buys a slice of pizza to go, he leaves at least a dollar, he said.

Last week at Uncommon Ground on Burlington's Church Street, four men were settled at two tables playing Magic Cards. One of the players, Ryan Unser, said he paid $2.15 for his coffee and put $1 in the tip jar.

"I always tip," said Unser, who buys coffee there every day and leaves $1.

He is a student at Champlain College and bar back at Red Square, a job that means making sure the bar is stocked with ice, liquor and clean glasses.

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Ryan Unser plays Magic Cards at Uncommon Ground on Church Street. He is a bar back at Red Square who tips $1 for coffee every time he buys a cup, “unless I can’t find four quarters in my room.”(Photo: SALLY POLLAK/FREE PRESS)

"I've worked in the service industry for six or seven years, so tipping seems more important to me because of that," Unser said.

At Red Square, Unser gets a percentage of the bartenders' tips. The pay varies by the season but ranges between $100 and $150 for an eight-hour shift, he said.

At the bar, a $1 tip per drink is nice, he said. If the drink costs "$X.75," people might leave $1.25. "And sometimes people leave nothing," Unser said.

'People want to fit in'

Sara Solnick is a behavioral economist at the University of Vermont, where she is chairwoman of the economics department.

She recalled a December showdown with a digital tip jar at a coffee shop in Berkeley, Calif., where she was presented with three tipping options, $1, $2, $3. But Solnick said she doesn't typically tip when she buys a cup of coffee, and didn't intend to in California.

"Visually, you're supposed to choose a number, and I had to really look for that no-tipping thing. But I did it," she said, telling herself: "I'm not letting this tipping machine intimidate me."

Electronic devices with tipping protocols "are designed to pressure you to tip more than you normally would," Solnick said. "Or at least ensure that you are tipping."

She likes the idea of making a kind of game out of tipping, a practice sometimes called Tip Wars. You'll see it at Uncommon Ground, where dueling tip jars try to lure customers. The other day it was Snoop Dogg v. Snoopy.

"It makes it more interactive, instead of it's just a way for them to get money," Solnick said. "There's some entertainment value to it. I'm a social scientist. I like that: a little survey where you're voting with your coins."

Surveys suggest people will tip at a restaurant where they will never eat again, Solnick said.

"If the only thing in the world people cared about is money they wouldn't leave a tip," she said. They tip because it's a habit and an expectation, Solnick said.

"I think people want to fit in," she said.

Probably the most unusual restaurant payment system in Burlington is in the Old North End at Psychedelicatessan, where customers pay (or don't pay) based on a suggested sliding scale. There's an option, the antithesis of the Clover system, called "pay as you feel meal."